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So my family has a Gay Pirate Plate.

Stay with me.

We do not know how the hell the Gay Pirate Plate was first acquired. This being a point of contention is actually pretty plot-relevant; the saga of the Gay Pirate Plate began with my grandmother and her sister, who, for some ungodly reason, both BADLY wanted the Gay Pirate Plate and believed it to be rightfully theirs.

I should back up, firstly, to establish: The Gay Pirate Plate is the cheapest, tackiest, ugliest plate in existence.

It is in no way a collector’s item. It is physically impossible for it to complement anyone’s decor, because the colors in it are garish. It’s just a ceramic plate with a gay pirate painted on it, and the painting is, this cannot be emphasized enough, extremely bad.

(How do we know the pirate is gay if he’s just posing on a plate? Listen. Fully 100% to stereotype, but he is. He is gay. There’s an energy. That pirate is a flaming homosexual. That pirate has sex with men and does it frequently. That pirate is fucking gay, all right, he just is.)

Anyway. The point is that this is an extremely cheap and ugly plate with a poorly-executed painting of pirate on it who is like a nine on the Kinsey scale.

My grandmother and her sister fought a blood feud over this plate for their entire lives. It would be on the wall in my grandma’s house, and then her sister would visit, and then it would be gone. She’d visit her sister and the plate would be on the wall and her sister would pretend it had always been there. She would steal it back, hang it up, and, when her sister visited, pretend it had always been there. This continued for DECADES.

When the sister died, the Gay Pirate Plate lived triumphantly in my grandmother’s house. And then my grandmother died. And my aunt, who had lived with her and been her carer throughout her life, rightfully inherited their house.

We visit my aunt after the funeral and stay with her for a week or two.

Me, my sister, and our dad. Her brother.

The three of us look at each other. We don’t say anything. We studiously avoid making eye contact with the Gay Pirate Plate mounted proud and ugly on the wall. We notice one another studiously avoiding looking at it. We notice one another noticing. We say nothing. We come to a silent consensus. We pack up to leave. We get in the van. Our aunt comes out to say goodbye. I loudly announce I need to use the restroom before we leave. She obviously stays outside to continue talking to my dad.

I take down the Gay Pirate Plate, stuff it under my oversized sweatshirt, go outside, and get in the van. She happily waves goodbye as we drive off.

Two days later my dad gets a phone call that opens with hysterical laughter and “You FUCKING ASSHOLE did you seriously STEAL THE PLATE–”

Anyway. The gay pirate plate lives in my dad’s house currently.

But he’s trying to get me and my sister out to visit him. And plate mounts are cheap.

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🧵 THREAD: This #PrideMonth, don’t forget that the fight for queer liberation didn’t start or end with marriage equality.

💪✨ We need to keep fighting for our rights.

Here’s are a few examples:

💋 Before the 2003 Supreme Court ruling in Lawrence v. Texas, same-smex smexual activity was illegal in fourteen U.S. states, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. military

👶 Before 2015, LGBTQ+ couples couldn’t adopt in all 50 states. Before the Supreme Court ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, laws varied wildly by state.

🏳️‍🌈 Before 1973, the American Psychiatric Association listed homosmexuality as a ‘mental illness.’ In December 1973, a vote was successfully held to remove it.

🗳️ Before 1974, there were no openly gay elected officials. That changed with Kathy Kozachenko, who became the first openly gay American elected to public office in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

🎖️ Before 2011, “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” banned LGBTQ+ people from serving openly in the military.

💍 Before 2015, LGBTQ+ couples couldn’t get married in all 50 states. At the time, laws varied by state, and while many states allowed for civil unions for same-sex couples, it created a separate but equal standard.

💼 Before 2020, employers could legally discriminate against queer and trans employees. It wasn’t until the U.S. Supreme Court held that an employer who fires or otherwise discriminates against an individual simply for being gay or transgender is in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

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v.2

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And that’s that on that.

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WE LOVE YOU PEDRO

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I have some news for members of the united states armed forces who feel like they are pawns in a political game and their assignments being unnecessary.

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My work boots are the most expensive shoes I’ve ever owned.

Also the most comfortable. I chose them after trying on several different brands and comparing lifespan vs usage vs comfort - I needed them for a physically demanding job, not the weekend hiking trails. I could have easily chosen cheaper boots that would have lasted long enough to be worth their low price, but I know the Sam Vimes Boot Theory and knew weaker, less comfortable boots would make my life harder in the long run.

So when the outside edge of the heel started wearing down after three years of heavy use I went to the shop I got them from and said “hey this is a common problem for me with how I walk but now it’s affecting my ankles and knees and I don’t wanna have to buy a new pair, is there a way to fix this?”

The salesman at this very fancy upscale boot store said “oh yeah, there’s a shoe repair place that can give you some heel guards - it’ll keep the rubber from wearing out.”

So at 8am this morning right after my 9hr shift ends I went to the shoe repair shop and it is the most hole-in-the-wall, is-this-a-real-business-or-a-mafia-front, am-I-gonna-get-shot tiny cinder block cube I’ve ever seen in my life. I grew up plenty poor and love me a good hole-in-the-wall business, but going from upscale store to this cash-only repair shop gave me whiplash. Wasn’t expecting this when a guy who wears three piece suits to sell boots said it’s the best place to go.

The skinny kid behind the counter looks somehow 16 and 25 at the same time, but when I tell him this place was recommended he smiles and says to hand over my boots. I hand him the vaguely warm foot-smelling boots, and stand in my socks in the 3’ square entryway surrounded by every color leather polish you could buy and watch as he turns my boots around in his hands, sizes up a crescent moon bits of plastic, and unceremoniously hammers tiny nails through them before handing them back.

The heels are perfectly level again. I can walk without almost rolling my ankles. They don’t clack loudly on the pavement or feel different. This is gonna fix my knee pain. It cost $10.

This kid had every tool he needed within arms reach, worked fast and smoothly, I was in and out the door in less than 8 minutes, and it only cost $10.

I didn’t think anything could cost only $10 anymore. I’m so used to hyperinflation prices I was spiritually thrown back to the 1400’s visiting the cobbler in town square. This kid might have been that cobbler and just decided to never die.

I’m still reeling from the whiplash, and gobsmacked at the price, and thrilled I didn’t have to go buy new, worse work boots (cuz I don’t have that kind of money for a second pair, I’m expecting these ones to last a decade) and it feels like I just experienced one of the rare little chunks of magic that floats around our world.

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You’re not depressed. You just need $250,000 in your bank account.

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Nice people make the best Nazis. Be mean, be tough, have a fascist tooth/skull collection.

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everything is a trash-fire, so what's the point?

why act at all, because people with horrible intentions and goals are in positions of power, and things we thought we'd moved past as a society are running rampant in the streets, why not turn inward, isolate, duck our heads, hunker down and listen to the inner cynic because the world sucks, and people suck, so let's just get through this life and not bother with anyone else, right?

because, my beloveds

sleeping at last sang to us how rare and beautiful it truly is that we exist

when writing about making the world a better place, n. k. jemisin said don't be patient. don't ever be. this is the way a new world begins.

teachers, in the face of schools no longer being a safe haven from ICE, are saying not my classroom

sienna tristen wrote "does it feel good? to hate everything so?" "no." "then you're allowed to stop."

the thesis of the old guard is distilled so perfectly in the line you need help. what does it matter why?

federal employees in the US are refusing to quit in the face of tyranny

people around the world are protesting in their own countries over the atrocities they are bearing witness to in others

becky chambers wrote hope isn't about predicting the future; it's about how you approach it

neighbors shovel each others' sidewalks in the snow

people who are not paid to do so clean storm drains of debris so that others may travel safely

little free libraries decorate so many yards

we taught a robot to sing happy birthday on a planet millions of miles away, because of the ridiculously wonderful ways in which we love the things we create and set sail into the universe as a representative of the burning fire of our curiosity

...

there are so many small acts of kindness that together amount to a rebellion—for our spirit as a people, for our place in this wonderfully luminous cosmos. don't ever let joy be overridden by fear. don't ever let the bright possibility of a better tomorrow be diminished by the shadow of a seemingly hopeless today. there are too many good things and effervescent joys in the world for hope to ever be extinguished. let hope be the hearth-fire that takes hold of you, transforms you, and rages like a wildfire outward and into the world.

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is ai ontologically evil or did another dingus put their clown shoes on by neglecting to do their actual job. why do people keep blaming the damn tool for this man it drives me apeshit.

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"spam like = blocked" if you spam like me i am going to cast 1000 protection spells on you so nothing bad happens to you ever

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Light Falloff

This artwork is a tribute to nostalgia— a gentle reflection of a time and place that shaped a golden childhood.

This old building holds the soul of simpler days, where laughter echoed through cozy rooms and the scent of home-cooked meals drifted from the kitchen. It was a world filled with video games, board games, and birthday candles glowing with joy.

Homework felt like a shared adventure, not a chore, and the hum of the TV, with its clunky antenna, was the soundtrack of peaceful evenings.

Neighbors were more like extended family, and safety was so deeply felt that locked doors were almost an afterthought—only discovered to be broken the day we were leaving town.

This is more than a building; it is a memory made of warmth, innocence, and the quiet magic of being home.

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June 9, 2025 - Huge crowds protesting in the streets of Paris, to demand the release of the Madleen activists of the Freedom Flotilla who were kidnapped by Israel in international waters, and an end to the genocide. [video]